Brian Crosby's hand swept across his face like someone waking up after four hours of sleep.

It was during a timeout with 1:23 left in the first half of C.M. Russell High's Eastern Conference matchup with Billings Senior on Friday night. The head coach looked tired. He looked frustrated. So did the players.

"Figure it out," he told them. "Let's go!"

CMR was down 26-11 at the time. Turnovers – the Rustlers had 15 of them in the first two stanzas – and the inability to grab a defensive rebound — they gave up 11 offensive rebounds in the first half — had the Rustlers in a huge hole. Senior's full court pressure defense was confusing the Rustlers, trapping players near the sideline and forcing bad decisions.

The Rustlers would proceed to mount a 30-17 run thereafter, turning what was a one-time 26-13 halftime deficit into a 43-41 score with 2:52 left in the game. But they just couldn't get over the hump, falling to the Broncs 48-42 in front of a good crowd at CMR Fieldhouse.

CMR fell to 3-3 in conference and 6-7 overall, while Senior improved to 7-6 overall and 3-3 in the East.

"Yeah, it was a great comeback," said Taylor Edwards, who scored 17. "A great effort. We kind of struggled in the first half, but definitely came back in the second half just ready to get after it."

Edwards, who said her knee was giving her some trouble, said they just weren't "mentally sound" in the first half. CMR turned the ball over 24 times in the game.

"We were making mistakes that we don't normally make," Crosby said. " … It was a lot of uncharacteristic errors for us. We are usually much cleaner than that."

Even after all that, though, the Rustlers, who recieved a nice game from Cailey Froehle with eight points, had chance for a miraculous victory. Courteney Shovlin generated a steal after Briana Easton got them within two, and Shovlin lifted from 3-point range but the ball rimmed out.

"If at halftime, you wouldn't told me we would have a chance to win the game, I probably would have thrown you out," he said.

Crosby was proud of his team's comeback. To even be in that position, he said, was pretty impressive.

"Absolutely," he said. "Tremendous effort. I'm proud of our kids. We kind of challenged them halftime. It wasn't the kind of effort that we normally put forward. And I'm proud of how we responded. They left it on the floor. I just wish we could've had a little better execution down the stretch offensively. That's mostly my fault, not getting us in the right stuff."

The Rustlers are back in action today against Billings West at CMR Fieldhouse at 4:30 in the afternoon. The Bears beat Great Falls High Friday night, improving to 4-2 in the East and 6-7 overall.

"If we can split this weekend, that's all we're asking for," Edwards said.